Unable (or unwilling) to travel to the States because of the 1977 sex abuse case that still hangs over him, the French-Polish director must have enjoyed the prospect of cocking a snoot by shooting a New York-set film in France with American actors and a perfect studio mock-up of a Broadway apartment.

The story starts from a premise similar to the springboard of Christopher Tsiolkas's novel The Slap: one boy "assaults" another boy in a New York public park after an argument, and the parents meet like civilised people to talk it over. Of course, things spiral and the teeth and bones beneath the skin are exposed (that Francis Bacon catalogue on the coffee table is just one of the witty premonitions placed like Easter eggs in the film's calm but simmering first act).

Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz (the Austrian revelation of Inglourious Basterds) play the parents of the assailant - he a dirty-tricks corporate lawyer who is always on his mobile phone, she a power-dressed financial broker who is perfectly turned out but a mess inside.

Little attempt is made to disguise the fact that this is the film of a play. And the dramatic gears grind a little during certain shifts of allegiance along couple and gender lines. But making the audience feel claustrophobic is central to Carnage's method: we're penned in, unable to leave this airless apartment with its collection of liberal gewgaws from component hi-fi to African totems to real logs (presumably never used) stacked by the marble fireplace.

The film also celebrates an old-fashioned, underrated cinematic pleasure: the chance to see an ensemble cast of fine actors sparring with each other, and at the top of their game.